Google's anti-ad scripts are breaking browsers and privacy plugins. It could get worse because Google controls the ad market, Chrome, and the extension store.

Another great article from 404 Media highlighting the power that the tech giants have amassed over how how we use the internet.

This brings me, I think, to the elephant in the room, which is the fact that Google has its hands on quite literally every aspect of this entire saga as a vertically integrated adtech giant.

This extreme power over the adtech and online advertising ecosystem is one of the subjects of an FTC antitrust suit against Google.

  • originalucifer
    36•1 year ago

    i jumped the google ecosystem a few years back seeing this coming…

    i hear a lot of ‘but i use googles x and googles y’. yep, and you will continue to have those chains on your wrists as long as you choose to have them there. everyone has the choice to start migrating to other email providers, other phone platforms, etc.

    im not saying its easy, or something that can happen quickly… but lamenting the fact youre in up to your neck is no reason to give up. baby steps. make bob wiley proud.

    • 👍Maximum Derek👍OPEnglish
      21•1 year ago

      I’ve ditched everything but android. Been thinking about swapping roms but not all the apps I need for work will works with MicroG. And going apple is, at best, a lateral move.

      • @[email protected]English
        7•1 year ago

        GrapheneOS has sandboxed Play Services which basically means they run just like a normal app on your device and you get to choose the permissions they get. My bank’s app works with it too (no GooglePay tho). It does require you to get a Google Pixel phone though, which might defeat the whole purpose for some.

    • @islesEnglish
      8•1 year ago

      I’m with you, on course to de-big-tech my life. I’m not even a power user of any of them, but got caught up in the convenience.

    • @[email protected]English
      4•1 year ago

      The only active google services I do use are

      • Android and Google Pixel (because fuck Apple lol)
      • Google Play Store (I sometimes use F-Droid)
      • YT

      I replaced my email with my very own domain
      I buy my own storage to host and backup at home.
      What I have from cloud storage is by chance of having Office365 (mainly because Outlook is so much superior for email management. I tried EM-client. It was worse).